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Sunday, October 12, 2008

5OO Greatest Movies of All Time (Empire Movie Magazine-11/O8) - What movie is on place 429?

No, it is not "Jaws" but another cult classic! Yep, it's that guy again: Diabolik!

(This is a movie poster from cold war Yugoslavia!)

The World's Bestselling Movie Magazine "Empire", based in the U.K., has asked their readers around the world what would be the "500 Greatest Movies of All Time" for their november 2008 issue. The votes are in and the list is completed. Although there are thousands of movies made during the past century, people have in their collective subconcious almost all the same movies on their mind that should be on the list or near the top of the list. So it is not strange that classics like Gone with the Wind, King Kong, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Goldfinger or The Matrix... are coming up together with all the other 494 movies. That being said there is one movie of interest for this blog that landed on place 429: "Danger: Diabolik!" with John Phillip Law as master criminal Diabolik and Marisa Mell as his partner Eva Kant, directed by movie genius Mario Bava.

This is what Empire says about the 1968 movie:

"Danger: Diabolik (1968)Director: Mario Bava

Meet Diabolik, masked super-criminal, high-living sensualist and unmatchable pop-art icon. An archly eyebrowed, unrepentant thief, Diabolik is equally opposed to a bureaucratic government (on a whim, he destroys a country's tax records) and the Mafia, and addicted to risk when it comes to stealing fabulously valuable items (eg a 20-ton gold ingot) which are also useless. Director Bava, a cult hero on the strength of Gothic horror films (The Mask Of Satan, Black Sabbath), was persuaded by Dino de Laurentiis to step away from the crypt for this one psychedelic masterpiece. It's as thin as a poster, but still amazing cinema - a succession of striking, kinetic, sexy, absurd images accompanied by a one-of-a-kind Ennio Morricone score that revels in its casual anarchy. Imagine if The Dark Knight were The Joker."

Isn't it great that a little movie made on a string budget at that time, like thousand other genre movies, is still being remembered more than 40 years later while all the other have been forgotten by today's readers of a magazine?

(This is a photo of Marisa Mell from a Japanese magazine. The photo was shot during the filming of Danger: Diabolik! during her time off of shooting her scenes.)

because we are always on the look out for new material, especially her "lost" movies like: La Tempesta, Einen Mann im schönsten Alter... Thanks!

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Marisa Mell (born as Marlies Theres Moitzi on February 24th 1939 and died on May 16th 1992)

Welcome to the "Marisa Mell"-blog honoring the life and work of the Austrian born actress. She was part of an era in the 60's and 70's where actors and actresses in Europe belonged to a select group of people who lived the fast life by being part of the Jet Set while living, loving, partying and working in places like Rome, Paris, London and Monaco. Those days are long gone mostly due to the collapse of European cinema with Cinecitta as prime example. In those days everybody knew everybody in the field, during the day they worked together and during the night they socialized. It was an amazing time with fond memories witnesses tell you. Unfortunately not every story of that time ends in an happy end! The life of Marisa Mell is such a tragic story. This blog wants to keep her memory alive for the next generation of film fans of European cinema old style.